Required Reading for Any Existential Mary

Friends,

When I call you Mary, you know what I mean, right?  Like, “What’s up, Mary?” Snap.  Gay lingo.  Once when I was cashiering we were all counting out our $$$ at the end of the night, and I’m so thankful I work in a gay-friendly environment with many GLBTQIA (M) M=Mary co-workers and I kept calling everyone Mary–like pass the white-out Mary, or does anyone have change for a ten, thanks, Mary.  My Mary dialogue-mania-addresses included one co-worker who is heterosexual, and another queer cashier said, “He’s not a Mary!”  And then we began the etymological search of the queer origins of the word, Mary, and someone said it came from Alice in Wonderland.  Or Wizard of Oz.  Or something like that.  And they said it with such conviction and were also from the “I’m a friend of Dorothy’s” generation that I believed them and halted all research right then.

Where were we?  Ah, existentialism.  I will leave out most of the details here, but since February 1st of this year, with the exception of ten days, I’ve been recovering from a variety of things. Don’t worry, none of it life-threatening.  I thought I was pretty healed up, until I came down with a cold a few days ago on the heels of a thrown out back.  So I’ve found myself spending a lot of time sick in bed reading, and feeling existential. Sickness makes a person existential, (as does playing countless games on Lexulous via Facebook with the wonderful poet Dorianne Laux–my Lexulous partner!) In my reading, I came across this that I must share with you. It is written by James Baldwin. If you’ve never read anything by James Baldwin, please do. Start with Another Country. Or Giovanni’s Room. Or Anything. You’re really not going to go wrong with anything James Baldwin.  Another Country is one of my favorite books of all time. What can it mean you ask to be a favorite book?  It means I was listening to Another Country on audio while in my old art studio, because I love to listen to things while I draw, and I was so engrossed I could only put down my paintbrush and sit wrapped in my winter coat hunched over my drawing table listening to James Baldwin’s words in astonishment. There is a suicide scene in Another Country, that when I heard it, made me think about all the things we have to imagineas writers and the suicide scene is so AUTHENTIC you can’t imagine how James Baldwin did it–made a person know what it would feel like jumping from a bridge…Without further adieu, I give you James Baldwin…

“It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death–ought to decide, indeed, to earn one’s death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life. One is responsible to life: It is the small beacon in that terrifying darkness from which we come and to which we shall return. One must negotiate this passage as nobly as possible, for the sake of those who are coming after us.” James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time, 1963.

I read that and I think–that Mary James Baldwin had his finger on the pulse of anything I need to know about anything.  The conundrum of life?  Earn your death.  There’s a million ways to do it– and I guarantee you none of them are wrapped up in being a self-interested schmuck and most of them have to do with being engaged in bravery with all humankind.  I will leave you with some photos.  I began painting my literary heroes as ducks awhile back, (don’t ask why– I can’t really explain it beyond the fact that I think it’s probably that I’ve been obsessed with the benevolence of ducks for sometime, or in other words I believe they earn their death nobly!)  because I love ducks so much and to me to be a duck is the highest honor. That’s how I found myself trying to draw James Baldwin as a duck.

Also, be warned Marys who are passionately confronting the conundrum of life– the FBI reportedly had a real thick file on James Baldwin.  Guess they weren’t too keen on a queer, black, man telling the truth.  I made this painting about Baldwin’s FBI file.  Tootles, Marys–Go F%$ck Sh**t up. xo, Ali